Publicist Jill Simmons has a demanding full-time job at the Seattle-based real estate information company Zillow. Yet she still manages to rack up 12,000 steps most weekdays. The 39-year-old knows this because she tracks them on her company-provided Fitbit, a gift to each new employee. Most of her steps are logged not during early-morning gym sessions—Simmons has two young children to get to school and day care—but during half-hour walks on the treadmill desks stationed in conference rooms at her office. "You can bring your laptop in; there's a monitor and a phone," says Simmons, who tries to walk twice a day, usually while making calls or taking meetings. "It makes a huge difference in my focus and energy level."

Feeling tense? Google offers in-house massages. Tired of your sad salad al desko? Facebook serves healthy eats at a raw-food bar the company is experimenting with in its New York City offices. Working late? AOL provides nap rooms, where you can catch a rejuvenating hour of shut-eye. The list goes on: Lululemon pays for employees to take two boutique fitness classes each week. Burton hands out season passes to local mountains. Square has discounted on-site acupuncture. And Sweetgreen hosts a 20-minute meditation break every day at 4 p.m.

The Trickle-Down Effect

Many of these healthy extras are the by-products of start-up culture and its "people operations" departments. Stereotypical benefits at tech companies once included foosball tables and fridges stocked with beer and energy drinks, but today's employees (who are more likely to be female, and parents, than in the early days of the tech boom) want free Spin classes, flexible work arrangements and grain bowls in the cafeteria. "There's a Silicon Valley–ization of the world happening," says Beth McGroarty, research director at the Global Wellness Institute in Miami. "The people who run these companies are interested in health and wellness. And the younger generations expect it; it's not a privilege."

Cutting-edge wellness programs have been adopted by small businesses and massive consulting firms alike. "We're no longer in a position where companies can simply go, 'Hey, you have a choice between the HMO and the PPO; come in here and do the work,' " says Jody Kohner, vice president of employee marketing and engagement at Salesforce, the cloud-computing powerhouse in San Francisco. Workers have become savvy about seeking out the best perks: Ninety-seven percent of young women said that work-life balance is very important to them when considering job opportunities, according to a recent report by professional-services firm PwC.

Among the trendiest new offerings are egg freezing (Facebook, Apple, Spotify), meditation rooms (Twitter, Salesforce), breast-milk shipping for nursing mothers traveling for work (IBM, Zillow) and unlimited vacation days (Netflix, Birchbox, GE and LinkedIn). The most ambitious employers target not just physical and mental health but employees' social lives, even their sense of purpose. The Verona, Wisconsin–based health care software company Epic encourages four-week paid sabbaticals after five years of employment to "expand employees' horizons." (If the staffer travels to a country she has never visited, Epic covers airfare and lodging for her and a guest.) Primal Wear, a Denver-based cycling apparel maker, pays entry fees for local races. When Allison McGuire, the company's licensing and logistics coordinator, ran a 5K recently, HR staffers handled the paperwork. They even bought her lunch with coworkers afterward. "They did everything for me," says McGuire, 23. "All I had to do was show up."

Not to be outdone, Amazon is building three massive "spheres" at its Seattle headquarters that will be stocked with plant life and tree house meeting areas—the better to help its urban workers stoke their creativity while connecting with nature. And speaking of nature, at Glassdoor, the Mill Valley, California–based jobs and recruiting site, employees are invited to glide out onto San Francisco Bay—during business hours—using company-owned kayaks and stand-up paddleboards. "It's really relaxing and fun," says Haley Woods, 29, a business development program manager. "I've seen stingrays and even otters in the middle of a workday."

An Upside For All Of Us?

These perks are good news for anyone hoping to maintain her health, relationships and sanity while building a career. On a typical workday, American women spend nearly half of their waking hours at their jobs; our full-time workweek, according to Gallup, clocks in at an average of 47 hours. But technology has also made it easier for work to follow us everywhere. Our days are so packed, so relentlessly plugged in, that it can be challenging to break for afternoon pilates on the green roof, even if it is just a quick elevator ride away. And regardless of how much your HR department publicizes the company-wide mindfulness seminar, attending can seem impossible if your boss is grinding away at her desk.

Which raises the question: Has wellness become yet another calendar item to stuff into our packed work schedules? And if so, can these initiatives possibly make us well—or are they just distracting us from the fact that we're still toiling more hours than almost any other population in the industrialized world? In the aforementioned PwC report, 50 percent of young women said that while their employer has work-life balance and flexibility programs, in practice they are not readily available. Similarly, unlimited-vacation policies have actually proved to be limiting: Many of us don't manage to take enough days off, even when no one's counting. (Kickstarter recently resumed offering a set number of days after finding that employees took less time off under its "flexible" policy.)

Perhaps this is why many forward-thinking wellness programs now focus on helping workers take advantage of initiatives already in place. Autodesk, the computer software company, donates $100 to a charity of the employee's choice for every 10 volunteer hours she logs. Zappos doles out points for attending events like the company's recent 50 Shades of Health fair—which focused on sexual health, offering screenings, chair massages, free condoms and a smoothie truck—and lets employees trade them in for gift cards or cash.

"We believe organizational support for well-being is just as important as the actual program," says Laura Hamill, chief people officer at Limeade, a Bellevue, Washington–based technology company that designs corporate wellness programs. "Managers should be making time for it themselves, and the physical work environment should support it—not only food but natural light and collaboration spaces for people to interact with each other, among other things." That type of support is why Brittany Livingston, a 23-year-old account coordinator in New York City, regularly has lunch on an office terrace. "My CEO walks around urging us to get up and get some fresh air," she says. "Without his encouragement, I'd be eating at my desk every day."

Of course, businesses have plenty to gain from wellness, too. These programs not only help with recruiting and retaining talent, but they help reduce employers' skyrocketing health care costs. "Companies are not necessarily doing it to be nice," says Bettina Deynes, vice president of human resources and diversity at the Society for Human Resource Management. "They're doing it because they're getting a return on investment in terms of higher productivity and keeping employees in the door." In a recent analysis of one top company, every dollar spent on wellness programs brought about a $1.50 ROI.

The Bottom Line

Ultimately, the program itself may be less important than what it conveys, according to a recent report by the Global Wellness Institute. "We found that having a workplace wellness program wasn't the real definer of whether you were productive and happy," says McGroarty. "It was more important that your company 'cared' about your wellness."

That rings true for Alison Nestel-Patt, a 31-year-old publicist in Denver who recently took a position with a new agency. When considering the offer, she weighed the work environment and actual job equally. "That didn't just mean beanbag chairs," she says. "I wanted a place that understands that life happens sometimes…the midweek doctor visit or wet hair in the office after a morning run." We all want to work for a company that values us, and not one that sees us as a line item. Employees who believe that their employer genuinely cares about their health report higher well-being and engagement with their job. And according to recent Gallup research, that well-being and engagement not only makes them less likely to miss work due to poor health, but improves their job performance. "Only focusing on physical health and thinking about employees as health care costs is the way it was done yesterday," says Hamill. "It's not the way this area is moving."

These innovative programs still represent a small portion of corporate wellness initiatives across the nation. But as research shows—and it is already beginning to—that an engaged, healthy workforce helps impact the bottom line, experts say more employers will get on board. "It's a fast-paced company, and we're trying to win," says Kohner, of Salesforce. "But we all need to stop and breathe every now and then."

This article originally appeared in the October 2016 issue of SELF. For immediate access to our newest issue featuring Ashley Graham, subscribe now and download the digital edition. This full issue is available September 27 on national newsstands.